DID SHE FALL OR WAS SHE PUSHED?
Heather Nicol recounts an unsolved tragedy from her family history, as she attempts to discover the circumstances surrounding the death of her 3 x greatgrandmother Sarah Mitchell
Did she fall or was she pushed? This was the question that my mother and her father’s family before her had always wondered. My 3x great-grandmother Sarah Mitchell was found at the bottom of some stairs and died days later in Guy’s Hospital. Her husband, John Mitchell, was suspected of causing the accident and I have been fortunate to find accounts of the inquest in newspaper archives.
John was born on 17 February 1817 in the Yorkshire town of Selby. As a young boy he must have been excited to watch barges carrying coal along the canal as well as larger vessels transporting cargo along the River Ouse to Hull and thence to foreign destinations. I imagine he longed for adventure because in 1829, at the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to the Merchant Navy, thus beginning a long career at sea. It was a hard life but he climbed the ranks from apprentice to mate and then gained his master’s ticket at Yarmouth when he was 28.
Of average height, with brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh, unblemished complexion, John was a strong man, having had to cope with the rigours of life on a ship. It was not too long before he gained the affections of a young servant girl named Sarah Carmichael. She was also from Yorkshire and her father was a mariner, so she should have known what life with a seaman was like.
The couple were married in 1844 in Southwark, London and produced two daughters and a son while living in Bermondsey near the River Thames. During this time John was issued with a certificate marking 20 years’ service
in the British Merchant Service in the Coasting and Foreign Trade.
He appears in the 1851 Census as being at home in Bermondsey with his family but is omitted from the 1861 Census, presumably because he was at sea. Maybe it was due to his absences and bringing up a family single-handed while also working as a laundress that turned Sarah to drink. John, now in his fifties, gave up the life at sea and became a stevedore, loading and unloading cargo at the docks in London. In 1870 the couple were living in New Church Street, Bermondsey with their eldest daughter, Sarah Ann, and her twoyear-old son, Albert.
The fatal day
Nelly Bridgeman, the eight-year-old daughter of a local shipwright and his wife, was in the habit of going round to New Church Street to help with little Albert, but on the morning of 20 August 1870 a terrible sight awaited her when she arrived. The street door was ajar and Sarah was lying on a mat in the passage with blood seeping from her head. Alarmed, Nelly ran home to her mother but as she was feeling unwell herself, Nelly came back alone and helped Sarah up to her bed. Nelly’s mother came a little later and found Sarah still lying on the bed and conscious. She bound her head with a cloth and asked who did it, to which Sarah replied ‘He has done it with a broom’. Mrs Bridgeman took ‘he’ to mean John, Sarah’s husband.
Lucy Mason, an acquaintance and neighbour, heard what was going on and went to see Sarah herself. She was shocked to find her in bed, covered in blood and quite insensible. ‘Well my girl, what shall I do?’ she enquired, ‘Did you fall?’ No answer came. ‘Drink this brandy and water,’ Lucy ordered as she looked around to see if she could make sense of what had happened. She noted the steep stairs and lack of handrail and realised that anyone falling down those stairs would not have landed on the mat. A yard broom was standing in the passage near the staircase. ‘He is a cruel fellow for doing this,’ Sarah whispered faintly.
Mrs Bridgeman, in the meantime, had gone for the doctor, who came and admitted Sarah to nearby Guy’s Hospital.
Who was responsible?
Meanwhile, what had become of John? He had left the house in the morning to go to work and returned at 5pm. He was apprehended the following morning and after at first denying he was at home at the time of the incident, later told the police rather unfeelingly, ‘I saw her fall down the stairs. She was drunk. She always is’. It was put to him that Sarah would not have been able to hit her head against the kitchen door, to which he replied ‘She might have struck herself against the latch of the door, which would have caused the injury’.
Inspector Boden of the City of London Police went to question Sarah in hospital and was surprised to hear her change her story about what had happened. She told him, ‘I did it myself by falling downstairs’. She refused to say anything against her husband and said ‘He has been a good father to our children’. She might have been worrying about what would happen to the children if they lost both parents.
Sarah died from a fractured skull on 30 August 1870, aged just 48. An inquest was held to determine the cause of death but it was inconclusive. It may have been caused by a blunt instrument or, if she had fallen, Sarah must have struck her head against some hard, projecting substance.
John was, however, arrested on a charge of attempted murder and remanded by the magistrate, but allowed bail. He knew things looked bad for him and made the most of this opportunity to escape. It is believed he got on a ship to Australia. He was never discovered by the police but, according to my great-aunt Lil, the family knew where he was. They never gave him up to the authorities, but no-one within the family was ever allowed to mention his name again.
About the author
Heather Nicol is retired and has been interested in family history since her teens, when she loved to listen to the stories told to her by her older relatives. She enjoyed researching this story, which is her first in print.